Document Type : Review Article

Abstract

Solid-liquid biphasic biosystems contains two phases; aqueous phase containing the microorganisms and polymeric solid phase. Non aqueous phase has various applications including faster removal of hydrophobic contaminants and release them to the aqueous environment for better decomposition by microorganisms, controlling the concentration of toxic and inhibitor substrates and isolation of the limiting reagents of the reaction from the environment. The major advantages of polymer use are nontoxicity for microorganisms, improbability to be used as a carbon source and very low price compared to the organic liquid phase. Using cheap, non-volatile, inflammable and easily felxible polymers as the second phase leads to design a biological process with high efficiency and low cost which is called the green process without the solvent.
In thisreview, the mechanism of action of this type of biphasic systems and the methods to choose the solid phase was introduced followed by the various applications of these systems.

Keywords

• Solid-liquid biphasic biosystems
• polymeric solid phase
• hydrophobic contaminant
• inhibitor substrate